Tuesday, 4 February 2014

South Africa’s Former President Nelson Mandela Left An Estate Valued At More Than 46m Rand ($4.13m; £2.53m), The Executors Of His Will Have Revealed.

The Mandela family trust will receive $130,000, plus royalties. Others to benefit include the governing ANC, personal staff and several schools.
Mr Mandela’s third wife, Graca Machel, may waive her claims to the estate, the executors said, although she is entitled to half of it.
The former president who died on December 5th 2013 left behind an estate that includes an upmarket house in Johannesburg, a modest dwelling in his rural Eastern Cape home province and royalties from book sales, including his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom.
Executor Justice Dikgang Moseneke said he was “not aware of any contest” to the 40-page Will.
Speaking at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg, Mr Moseneke said some of the estate would be split between three trusts set up by Mr Mandela, including a family trust designed to provide for his more than 30 children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Schools the former president attended are due to receive 100,000 rand each, as are Wits and Fort Hare Universities, for bursaries and scholarships.
The family trust will receive 1.5m rand, plus royalties. The ANC will also receive some royalties, to be used at the discretion of the party’s executive committee, to spread information about the principles and policies of the ANC, particularly about reconciliation.
Mr Mandela’s children each received $300,000 in loans during his lifetime and will have that debt scrapped if it has not been repaid.
Close personal staff, including long-time personal aide Zelda la Grange, each get 50,000 rand.
The home in Houghton, Johannesburg where Mandela died on December 5 will be used by the family of his deceased son Makgatho.
“It is my wish that it should also serve as a place of gathering of the Mandela family in order to maintain its unity long after my death,” the former statesman wrote.
The mood of the Mandela family when the Will was read was “charged with emotions, but it went well,” said the executor, who added that the Mandela family were “well pleased” by his Will.
Despite this, there are fears the Will could set off another round of squabbling among members of his large and factious family.
Justice Moseneke, who is also deputy head of South Africa’s Constitutional Court, said there was a 90-day period in which the Will can be contested.
The Will was first written in 2004 and last amended in 2008.